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A companion volume to The Spartan Regime and The Grand Strategy of Classical Sparta that explores the collapse of the Spartan‑Athenian alliance

During the Persian Wars, Sparta and Athens worked in tandem to defeat what was, in terms of relative resources and power, the greatest empire in human history. For the decade and a half that followed, they continued their collaboration until a rift opened and an intense, strategic rivalry began. In a continuation of his series on ancient Sparta, noted historian Paul Rahe examines the grounds for their alliance, the reasons for its eventual collapse, and the first stage in an enduring conflict that would wreak havoc on Greece for six decades. Throughout, Rahe argues that the alliance between Sparta and Athens and their eventual rivalry were extensions of their domestic policy and that the grand strategy each articulated in the wake of the Persian Wars and the conflict that arose in due course grew out of the opposed material interests and moral imperatives inherent in their different regimes.

Paul A. Rahe is a Rhodes Scholar and holds the Charles O. Lee and Louise K. Lee Chair in the Western Heritage at Hillsdale College. He is the author of numerous books including the three‑volume Republics Ancient and Modern.

Winner of the 2019 Stratfor Book Award for Geopolitical Analysis, sponsored by the Mackinder Forum

“Rahe has written a clear and thorough history of the Pentecontaetia. His profound command of the sources and prose, supported by clear and well placed maps, makes this book a must for the general reader as well as scholars.”—Bob Strassler, Founder and Series Editor of the Landmark Ancient Histories